


The Weight of Winter

by madscientist1313



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madscientist1313/pseuds/madscientist1313
Summary: You find comfort in the snow, in the eerie silence of winter. But Bucky’s just not into that shit.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	The Weight of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Written with the prompt, “Jack Frost can fuck right off.”

“For the last time,” he mutters, words meting through tightly clenched teeth as he tosses the bag into the corner and tightens his metal hand around your hip. “We are not _on the run_.”

A final woosh of cold air blows past you, tiny tinkles of sleet and snow pelting the back of your neck as he ushers you the rest of the way into the room and kicks the door shut behind you. “Just let me have my fun, old man,” you pout, head heavy on his shoulder, legs nearly buckling beneath you.

“I don’t understand you SHIELD agents,” he grumbles, shaking his head back and forth as he takes care to lower you gently to the edge of the bed. “Mission’s over. It’s done. We’re in a safe house – ”

“Motel,” you correct, the word firing over the top of a pained hiss as his fingers begin peeling away the sticky fabric around your wound.

Bucky rolls his eyes – “ _Safe_ being the operative word.” – and shakes his head again. “And you’re… fantasizing about being on the run?”

“First of all,” you begin, voice low and far weaker than you expect, the sound alone causing your breath to hitch with a sudden – albeit fleeting – swell of dread. _No need to worry_ , you remind yourself yet again. Because you never need to worry when you’re with him. “There is no SHIELD anymore,” you go on, struggling to fortify the statement. “So I’m not a SHIELD agent.”

His face tightens, brows shrinking together into an anxious scowl as he watches you feign composure. “Whatever,” he spits out, his concern quickly morphing into frustration.

“And secondly,” you continue, small, crooked smile blooming across your sallow face, “ _safe_ is all well and good… but _danger_ can be so damn much fun. And _sexy_.”

He trains his eyes on your blood-soaked middle, refusing to look up and meet your teasing gaze. A deep swell of anger overrides that side of him that normally sparks and flames at your odd sensibilities, your quirky sense of humor, your unflappable desire to keep from showing any pain or fear. Ordinarily, he finds it all strangely enchanting, perhaps even admirable. But not now. Not here. Not like this. “You’re still in danger of bleeding to death,” he mutters harshly under his breath. “If that does it for you…”

You flinch away from him and flop backwards, falling onto the stiff mattress with a dramatic sigh, arms and legs askew. Bucky blows an impatient breath out of his nose and crawls up the bed to finish removing your nearly shorn tac suit. “It’s barely a graze,” you breathe out, muscles inadvertently clenching as his fingers work beneath the thick, leatherlike fabric. “I’m fine.”

“Knives don’t _graze_ , sweetheart,” he replies with a raised brow. “They cut and they stab. And what you are is _cut_ and _stabbed_.”

You let out another sigh – one filled with more than a hint of defeat – and you give into the exhaustion that the day – and blood loss – has wrought, allowing your body to sink down atop the scratchy comforter. Allowing Bucky to do what he needs to do. What’s the point in playing down your injuries when he’s the one tending to them, anyway?

You turn your head, gaze traveling to the far side of the small room, to the wide picture window there. Curtains frame either side of the slightly frosted glass, leaving the stunning view on full display. A sprawling clearing right outside the motel. A dense forest of snow-capped trees, branches heavy with the weight of winter, looming just beyond. All of it beginning to dim and darken in the blueish twilight. “I trust you,” you murmur softly, barely a whisper, final word catching as he tugs away the last of the sticky, blood-soaked suit.

He lets out a short scoff, little more than an irritated huff blown sharply through his nose. And he rises and spins to retrieve the large black bag from the corner. _Zip_. You hear him tug it violently open, sharp clinks and scratches echoing through the otherwise silent room as he digs through the bag’s contents. You know what’s in there. You know what he’s looking for. The fully stocked first aid kit, complete with styptic and a suture set. A full bottle of vodka, because you were always either going to celebrate with swigs or choke on a scream while disinfecting.

“Don’t get the clean clothes all bloody,” you chide weakly from the bed, eyes still trained on the tranquil beauty outside. Bucky’s bag is always packed with a fresh set of civies – one for you now too, ever since that tumble you took into a scummy pond a few missions back. He’s always got them buried beneath the other essentials, packed neatly away with care. Vaguely, you recall laughing at him – long, long ago. Mocking – _You’re like a damn boy scout_ – back before you ever realized how much you would benefit from his preparedness.

Another scoff sounds as he continues to dig around, plucking out items and either palming them easily in his large hands or dropping them to the floor with a dull thud. But you don’t turn to see what exactly it is that he’s doing. You don’t need to. Frankly, you don’t care. This isn’t the first time he’s patched you up after a rough mission. Isn’t the first time either of you have been tasked with staunching the flow of blood from the other, stitching skin and haphazardly bandaging wounds that would make local clinics and hospitals just a bit too suspicious.

He knows what he’s doing, and you trust that. You trust _him_. So you keep your gaze trained on that window, on the melancholy dusk beginning to gray out the bright white field, draping a shadow across the snow-heavy trees in the distance.

It had started just after you exited the expressway, giant white flakes suddenly filling the sky, dropping lazily about you as he drove. As dark red blood seeped into your palms – into his wide open palm as well – as the two of you hurried deep into what had begun to look like a true-to-life winter wonderland. The further you crept into the thickly wooded hills, tree branches already glistening pearly white above, the more the car struggled for purchase – Bucky cursing all the way, steering with just his tightly gripping metal hand, refusing to let you go with his right – on the whitened roads. And the less everything seemed to hurt.

“It’s beautiful,” you mutter blankly – not for the first time – as you continue to stare longingly out the window. Your eyelids grow heavy, once reeling brain now slowing in time with the gently falling flakes beyond.

Bucky’s head pops up, sees yours turned away, your gaze locked onto the gradually graying expanse outside the tiny, musty motel room. “It’s a snow storm,” he says after a moment, annoyance creeping back into his tone. “Shit could’ve killed us out there.”

A quick – and _painful_ – laugh vibrates through your body, your eyes pinching shut against the ache as you swivel your head towards him. The mattress dips beside you, and when you open your eyes again, he’s there, his warm hip pressed to yours, his bloodied hand once again resting on the wound in your side. His brow is scrunched with worry and dread, and you almost let out another laugh, one fond and wistful, as you reach up and trace a finger down the length of his all-too-serious face. Almost. “You think everything’s out to kill us.”

His tight expression uncoils just a bit at hearing your voice, feeling your touch, seeing your tired eyes lock onto his. “I see what the world shows me.”

You feel the scratch of his stubble tickle your palm as you flatten it atop his cheek, let it linger there for a fleeting moment before ending with a swift pat and letting your hand fall heavily back to your side. “Well, I see snow,” you hum out, blinking your eyes shut again as your head shifts back towards the window.

His fingers – both flesh and metal – begin to press and tug at your side, wiping away some more blood before – “This is gonna hurt.” – a splash of vodka spills over your exposed skin and down into the wound. It burns, causes you to jolt and stiffen and recoil, even as his hands pin you down. “Sorry,” you hear him mutter, barely a whisper, as breath returns to your lungs in fits and starts. As Bucky’s vibranium thumb takes a break from tending the gashes in your side to instead absently stroke a tender trail along your rib.

“I know you have some lidocaine in there,” you say with a twisted smile, voice strained as the blaring pain slowly recedes into a dull ache. “Could’ve shot me up with some of that first.”

He shrugs – “Need to see where I’m injecting it.” – and pulls away the gentle caress to begin his work.

All the while – as he numbs the large wound in your side, and another smaller one above it, and then begins to stich you up, his fingers swift and well-practiced – you stare out that window across the room and urge yourself to get lost out there, out in the cold, numbing winter landscape. “Is it Siberia that made you hate the snow?” you ask after several long, silent moments.

“Yes,” he answers pointedly.

Your tone shifts, becomes a bit gloomy, voice echoing a soft sentiment buried deep in your soul as you say simply, barely a whisper, “We could be there right now. We could be anywhere.”

Bucky continues to focus on his work, his words coming out clipped. “We’re in Pennsylvania. Not Siberia.”

“But it _could_ be anywhere,” you murmur softly, tiny smile spreading across your lips. “We could be on the run. Together. Going… somewhere. Going anywhere.”

He’s silent for a long moment, nothing but the steady in-out of his breaths mingling in with your own more strained, more shallow ones. “Stark should have the extraction team here in a couple of hours,” he says finally, his voice tight and tense.

You let out a deep sigh, your wracked body somehow – despite the dull throbbing and disconcerting numbness – managing to relax into the bed. “Can’t just let me have my fun, can you?”

“This isn’t _fun_ ,” he spits out, words commanding despite the slow, deep, oddly soothing tenor to his voice. “I don’t even want to think about us being out here without any help on the way.” A long, languid breath spills out of him and you feel the warm press of his flesh hand atop your ribs, the gentle brush of his thumb returning and setting off a tiny, itchy tendril of delight – of _love_ – in your core. He leans down over you, presses his forehead to yours, his breath hot on your cheek as he mutters, “I just want to get you home, doll,” before dropping a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth and springing back upright to finish his work.

You watch him for a moment, as he cuts down some gauze and tenderly tapes it to your side. As he deftly maneuvers a long bandage around your torso, whispers through clenched teeth – _sorry…damn… sorry, doll_ – when the shifting of your body causes you to grimace and quiver.

When he’s done, you return your gaze to the outside world, the nearly full moon reflecting off the snow to breathe light into a space that is otherwise total darkness. Shuffling and clanging and snapping all sound in your periphery as Bucky dumps the spent supplies back into the duffle and strips off his tac suit, the heavily buckled jacket falling to the floor with a weighty slap. The water runs in the adjacent bathroom, his hulking shadow falling out onto the floor just beneath the window, just in your line of sight, as you listen to him hurriedly wash his hands. Desperately scrubbing away the evidence of your injury… of his own agony.

“Do you think it’s snowing back at home too?” you ask once the water shuts off.

“God, I hope not,” echoes out from the open bathroom door in an exhausted tenor. He steps out into the dim light of the room and tosses a quick glance outside, no doubt checking for threats rather than taking in the wonderous scenery that you’ve been living in for the past who knows how long. He lets out a huff, tugs on a clean T-shirt, and leans over to flip off the bathroom light.

“Jack Frost might be paying a visit to the compound right now,” you say with a crooked grin, your voice thick and tired, slightly slurred. “You never know.” The weight of your lids is becoming too much to bear, no matter how you struggle to keep them afloat. You blink – once, twice – so much time in between that you miss seeing the strides that carry him across the room.

The bed dips beside you and you open your eyes one last time to see Bucky tactfully lay down beside you, curling close without disturbing your still throbbing body in the least. He leans in and drops a swift peck to the very tip of your nose, his pale blue eyes holding tight to your gaze until your lids flutter shut again and sleep finally begins to overtake you. Then he lays down his head, barely a breath away from yours on the pillow, and he mutters, just loud enough to cut into your snow-white dreams, “Jack Frost can fuck right off.”


End file.
